The Pentecost people

St. Paul's celebrated Pentecost Sunday 2007 with a baptism. Like birthdays, baptisms are occasions not only to celebrate with a new brother or sister in Christ, but to remind ourselves that we too once were at the font, whether held by older, loving arms, or guided there by our own two feet. At every baptism, we renew the vows that we made or that someone who loves us made for us, to strive -- despite our failures, because of our failures -- to live into those promises that make up the Christian life. I sometimes wonder if at every single birth every baby were given some words uttered on her/his behalf that could be read each year on that person's birthday we might put into language the singular specialness that we can only begin to understand and marvel at with candles and cake.

It seems fitting that our book study group ends on Pentecost, with a baptism and our recitation and renewal of our own baptismal vows. Baptism reminds us that Christianity is always beginning, always starting anew, which make this well-worn journey of faith so fresh and enlivening to every person to walks it, each generation who sets out to know the heart of God. Sometimes that path is well-trodden, but sometimes, like now, the trail isn't well-marked and we might feel like we don't quite know which way to go. Maybe we've taken the wrong turn and should go back and take that other road that seemed so much easier to take. Or maybe we can't go back. It's getting dark, and a little cold, and please God help me find my way of out these desert places because this journey is more confusing that I'd thought. Where are you?

Our book study group ended with a baptism, which is a promise. It's not a promise of anything more than what God promises us over and over: I'm with you, don't be afraid. Our group concluded last Thursday with this realization, which is really a reminder, that what to imagine and claim Christianity for the rest of us, in this, the 21st century, it's more important why we believe than what we believe. And why we believe is because God is with us, and we're with each other as we journey through the life of faith with no markers of our certainty.

Over 7 weeks, we have talked about our hopes and dreams for the church not so much by waxing about the sundry programmatic possibilities that St. Paul can offer -- certainly, we can continue to worry about that. But in the midst of our anxieties and imaginations, we listened to where we've come from, why we came here, and what difference God has made in our lives that is enough evidence to know that God's still making a difference in our lives today and tomorrow. We listened to each other's stories and through that listening we heard God whispering to us, each and every time: this is my beloved, listen to her, listen to him! And while we differed over what we believed, we knew that each person had reasons why she or he believes, and it was that why that kept us coming together.

The church of the future, no matter what it looks like, will still be about relationship, with God, with one another. We're not coming to church just because it's what our parents did, but we are coming to church because our ancestors did. We come to church because the story of God search for humanity through the ages is still happening, and our seven-week journey together bears witness to that most ancient and yet most palpable reason for doing church: where two or three are gathered, Christ is with us, two or three IS Christ. The Lord be with you. And also with you.

We ended our group on the eve of Pentecost, the culmination of Easter, and we emerge from that room over in the Gooden Center praying that we can be a Pentecost people to the world. And how do we do this? Do we need more money? Maybe. Do we need better programs? Probably. Most of all, we become a Pentecost people by first sitting down with someone, a stranger, someone who DOESN'T speak the language with which you are familiar and ask him or her: tell me your story, in your own language, and I'll try to share with you mine in your language too. To live the life of Pentecost, which is the culmination of Easter, is to risk the Spirit's taking us to places we didn't even imagine was possible, to people we might rather avoid. To be a Pentecost people is to be relentlessly relational, because God is in the relation. God asks us, "Men of Galilee, People of St. Paul's, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? Go to Jerusalem, go into Ventura, go into the world, because that's where my Spirit is."

We end this group with a baptism on Pentecost, which is really a promise to God and a promise by God. What God is challenging us to do now, and tomorrow, to live into the life of Christ that we were reminded of today through our renewal and in our promise to uphold the journey of our new brother in Christ, is to show the world what it means to be Christian, and why that makes a difference. "See how they love one another," said people of the ancient world of the Roman empire of those who were called Christian. Perhaps our greatest challenge to be a Pentecost people, today and tomorrow, to show why we believe what we believe is to live out a life of faith that makes others exclaim, "See how they love one another and everybody else!"

Thank you for reading. Thank you to those who attended the group so diligently, and thank you for being part of this journey, as it closes in this form and emerges in a new, heretofore unimagined iteration. Happy Easter and happy Pentecost.